I was in bed already when he came into his side. He keeps a book on his nightstand, several of them, but usually only one is he reading at a time. In bed does not necessarily mean that I am asleep. “Are you going to be mad at me”, he asked, “if I read for a little while?” It was a straightforward question. “No”, I said, kind of endeared by his asking, “I only get mad when you don’t pay attention to me”, and soon I was out.

And in the morning, the topic of attention must’ve still been on my mind. “I have a theory to run by you”, I said, “whenever it’s a good time”. I was stretched out in some position on the living room floor. He was in the dining room. “Give me a minute”, he responded, finishing up a prayer or reading. This is one of those things they taught us to do. For the “Safe Conversations”, you start out by asking, “Is this a good time?”

That way you’re not just barging into another person’s train of thought. It shows that you’ve noticed, “Oh, you’re doing something”. It gives the other person a chance to know what to expect, to adjust where needed, or name a better time, and to ultimately meet the other person in a state more suited for listening. What do I mean by attention? I mean when the person is in the room you show them again that you love.

This summer I don’t have any desires. Last summer was the massive switching up of the bedrooms. In other years it’s been ordering school books and redesigning the school room. Swimming together was a common daily activity. In years before there was this rush of excitement in having them home with an overwhelming sense of wanting to make the most of time. Summer was my time, our fun time, when I had them all.

Josh was talking this morning how he was thinking about having the boys be his assistants for the summer. It has kind of reached this point with me where unless I am asking them to help me with chores, I do not intuitively know as much what to do with them. This is the age where I feel like kids drift. They no longer need to be watched or tended too as intensely. It’s kind of a magical age where they can fend for themselves.

It’s an easier age than when they were little, so much so that you never quite get over the thankfulness for that relief. I know a mom of a special needs daughter who lives with them, and rather than experiencing the feelings involved with empty nest, she went through the sadness of never getting to have one. As universal as some experiences are for people, there will always be those who’ve been through different.

This morning the kids and I went to church. We still habitually run only a few minutes late. This morning the kids did mention that I had tried this morning to get out the door earlier and they were the ones who’d delayed us. Our pastor is out of town and had not been able to find a fill-in. Dad already had an appointment from six months prior to preach for a pastor who’d not taken a Sunday off in seven years. He went on vacation.

Two of the elders led the service. I could’ve kissed them for being so brave, not a romantic kiss, just a happy one. After church we stopped by County Market and I picked up fried chicken along with some things to make for sides. We waited for Dad and ate lunch together. I took a few pictures later in the evening and sent them to a few moms.

I worked another shift from 3-7 this evening. The four hour shifts are really the best as they pass by quickly and mentally you feel no dread beforehand. Whenever I walk through the doors of Spring it smells to me like a newborn baby. This time the nurse was a mom whose son plays college baseball. He also plays for the local Horseshoes team in Springfield. We usually try to make a game or two.

The staff has a couple of days off between camps. Laura was supposed to go to a family reunion but was so tired after Joyful Hearts she ended up staying here. Three-fourths of the counselors were around yesterday. It is less today. We visited my mother-in-law for supper last night and enjoyed a few hours out there. We watched Pat Sajak give his farewell speech during his last episode on Wheel of Fortune. The kids played volleyball and the Cardinals also played the Rockies.

Every time we’re at the house I wish my father-in-law was there to see it. It would’ve brought him so much joy to see his family enjoying it. Next to the door is a shelf with his picture on it. Before he’d gone back to the hospital a second time, he and my mother-in-law visited the house and she was able to get a picture of him standing in the doorway. Only the framing was finished then. We had a nice time.

Something I said
didn’t sit right with me
but I didn’t have the energy
to rethink the words

It was the part about trying
and being intentional
setting goals
to walk three miles

Some intention is good
yes, don’t give up fully
but any more than that
you’re living life on the edge

That place
where you
are not able
to see

From now on you wait
until something can be
for the most part
effortless

My sister-in-law and her family are moving to St. Louis sometime this summer. The synod job I mentioned at one point didn’t end up being something she wanted. In the past three years she has probably had at least ten calls. Maybe right about that many, including one to come and be principal at one of the grade schools here. She ended up taking one at an early childhood center with a bigger church in Des Peres.

I feel sad we never made it down there to visit more often. It was one of those things where their free times for travel were always during the times when we had to be here. And then when we did travel we would either go down to Florida or over to New York. As far as I know we’re still planning on going on this South Dakota trip at the end of the summer. I’ve been thinking about this mountain we’re supposed to climb.

I wasn’t going to try to really worry about doing it, but I was thinking I could maybe make some goals like walking three miles a day. I checked my phone where I see my step counts and I’ve averaged 1.8 miles daily over the past half year. I really can’t tell how much is simply being out of shape and how much is something I can’t break through because it’s not going to get better. When I walk up hills I feel very heavy.

It’s hard for me to stay motivated with exercise when I don’t experience the kind of results I want fast enough. The yoga I can do because I feel results with it. I wish I could ask God, “Could I look better than this, or is this just it now?” I’m not content here though, and I do think I could make an effort to be more consistent with something, even as the routine will get thrown off here and there with other things going on.

It’s not even about looks at this point, it’s about comfort. It’s uncomfortable carrying extra weight and wearing pants in the summer. Your breathing is different. Sitting down is different. Diet is not the main thing going on, it’s the yo-yo effect of feeling good and okay some days and completely not on others. I don’t know what the answer is but I also know it’s okay to go slow and take your time. It’s the only answer I have right now.

I need to figure out how to get into my campus email. Of course there are emails I have already missed and while I did take a screen shot of my NetID, I did not write down whatever my password was for this one. They keep changing the security standards so that you can’t just use the password that was perfectly fine without having to add an uppercase number or special character. It’s the first day so thankfully they give you some grace.

And a printed out 27 page syllabus. They have to have all of the standards and school rules. I didn’t think they did that for students anymore but I was happy to finally hold it in my hands and get right back to sitting in my comfortable back row seat. I found a notebook, pencil, and my backpack, then map-quested the way to the school and left. I’d written on a card the number and building and thankfully did not have too much trouble finding it.

Besides the beginning chit-chat and introduction time, we talked about the syllabus for the entirety of the class time. The first assignment is writing a self-care plan paper. The phrase self-care in these classes is about as common and accepted as the plain word “the”. It didn’t seem to bother people and never became a big deal discussion. I tried a couple of times to bring it up (at LCU) and ask how to explain this more in Christian terms.

It’s because I read Twitter posts where people get upset about it. And Instagram too where the idea is somewhat mocked. I know you’re going to have that there but I legitimately wouldn’t mind putting together some kind of visual presentation where I am making the case for “self-care” in Christian terms. This is not something that is even an option anymore. It is something I have to do and make time for in order to be able to do anything.

The past few days have left me quite exhausted by the end. Joyful Hearts week is always a little more overstimulating because you have so many people in one room with the echoes. I’m struggling even now to come up with anything to to say, there’s just nothing left, or nothing in there right now. Lucinda, the nurse, is here for this week and when she comes is always such a highlight of the summer, for the year even for me.

I had to help cook supper. The normal evening cook was sick and the others couldn’t fill in. One of the LuHigh boys is working in the kitchen along with another who has been here with the boy scouts. They both are good workers. The cooks all have their own ways of doing things. I told them they could use a clean dish towel to dry dishes with but when it’s the other cook then you have to do it however she says to do it.

What we’ve really needed is someone with OCD to come in and run the kitchen again. I shouldn’t say that’s what we’ve needed because God provides for our needs and the people he has provided aren’t ones with OCD. It really is hard to not compare the camp I remember with the camp I am living with and working at now. They were big on working. If you were a good worker it would stand out to them, same if you weren’t.

Everyone had their quirks. I personally was a little terrified of the main cook and cleaning lady because she had very high standards and always seemed to favor the male staff over the girls. You can’t flirt with young women or earn points with extra pieces of bacon. I’m not saying she did that. But her way has been what I have had in my mind when it comes to how a kitchen can actually be run. We both miss her.

It’s different when you’re a grown up. It’s actually a good system they have right now so I hope it works out. Miles is another person they’ve hired to help. He needed to make $2000 for college. Laura has a camper where you have to puree her food. She’s the only one like that where you have to feed them. I am grateful still that I am able to work. I could not see once how I would ever be able to. It is payment enough.

It is just as much of an indictment of myself to concede the point that marriage is hard. I will wake up in the morning or have random times here and there when I am inwardly mad about something again. Nothing even needs to happen other than a memory that floats by, or a social media post that you read. I finally did unfollow a couple of accounts where the posts chronically produced in me an annoyed and disagreeable response.

It’s like I’m staring down into the water when I see it, the hurt, and I try to catch it with my hands and cup the water so I can throw it up into the air. And quickly move it along. It’s like an offering, where I say, “By his wounds I am healed”. I just keep offering them up because God is the one who can do something with them, who has already.

So anyway, it’s a practice, a life-long one I suppose. Because the way of peace is truly much better and that is the gift that God is wanting to give me, that he pours out and fills me up with every single day. The ones that most upset me are those with the words I once lived by and believed and told others myself. I keep trying to tell them you almost never hear older women saying these things. It’s the ones who are still learning.

Laura’s parents invited our family and another family over for supper. It’s funny how a relationship between your children opens you up to another whole household. They’ve been at every camp function since this relationship started and have plans to come visit the camp on Monday. Because of circuit events over these years, her parents aren’t total strangers. They are ten years older than us and all their kids are out of the house.

The other family has two sons who are also currently working at camp. The kids wanted to play indoor board games after supper. They’d already played a very intense frisbee game in the yard. I only say intense because everyone was sweating, even though the temperature was mild and the rain drops only small. Board games are one of those things that I don’t enjoy all that much because I feel blocked off from people’s minds.

Laura’s older brother, who was visiting from California, suggested that the married folks play the game Spouse-ology. It is a couple’s game that was developed and sold by Family Life ministries. This sounded fun to me and the men endured it with good attitudes. You had to pick a card and answer questions based on what you thought your spouse would choose from the options. We played a couple of rounds and I would play it again.

The theme of today was bodily ailments. This morning I met with a woman who has been in my life for many years. We started stretching together a couple of years ago. It became a thing for us to get together and catch up on the various things in each other’s lives, while we sat on her living room floor with my apple piano music playing.

So it was lovely to do that again today. I wish I could go into more of the details of the story and the conversations that have come from it. It would make me happy to compose a case study for the sole purpose of showing what the average person is going through. Very often it is more than you think. It was the same with another I talked to today.

Sometimes it feels like God has got me on a leash. I get these chances again to do things here and there. The nursing. The classes. These conversations with others. And when I do it’s like I’m filled with this rush of desire, like oxygen once cut off is free-flowing again. Let me out, my heart says begs, let me out. Let me out and I will run.